1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an image forming system and a technique related thereto.
2. Related Art
There is an image forming system in which an image forming apparatus such as a Multi-Functional Peripheral (MFP) and a server computer execute predetermined processing in cooperation with each other.
One example is an image forming system in which an MFP and a server computer (specifically, application software executed in the server computer) execute processing such as distributing a scanned image obtained by the MFP to a plurality of client computers via a network, in cooperation with each other.
In the image forming system, for example, a scanning operation is executed after various setting operations have been performed using an operation panel unit of the MFP, and a scanned image generated by the scanning operation is distributed via the server computer to each client computer.
Immediately prior to the scanning operation, various setting operations are performed using the operation panel unit of the MFP. Specifically, various types of mode settings (e.g., image quality setting, color setting, and image file format setting) for the scanned image generation operation (image forming operation) performed by the MFP are made using the operation panel unit of the MFP. The operation panel unit is provided with a touch screen or the like, and a user interface is constructed using the touch screen.
Meanwhile, a technique has been proposed in which a user interface in the operation panel unit of the MFP is constructed using web technology (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2009-302769). Specifically, a web browser in the MFP communicates with a web server in the server computer using a predetermined protocol (e.g., Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)) and receives data (web page data) for user interface screen display from the web server. As a result, a user interface screen is displayed by the web browser.
In the image forming system as described above, it is preferable that an interface is constructed using the web browser that communicates with the web server. This makes it possible to easily improve the degree of freedom of screen design or the like on the application side.
Incidentally, a plurality of mode settings for the image forming operation (e.g., image quality setting, color setting, and image file format setting for the scanned image generation operation) include two or more settings that are prohibited from being set in combination with each other. That is, two or more settings that are prohibited from being combined are present in a plurality of settings.
For example, a given MFP may assume that the color setting for JPEG data is either “full color” or “grayscale” and may not permit “monochrome binary” as the color setting for JPEG data. In other words, there are cases where a combination of “JPEG” as the image file format and “monochrome binary” as the color setting is prohibited.
In many cases, such a prohibited combination of settings differs from model to model. In order to create the server application software of the above-described image forming system to be compatible with a plurality of MFPs, it is necessary to take prohibited combination information regarding each of the MFPs into consideration. As a result, a significant number of man-hours is required to create the server application software.